


Castle Of Lions Passes The Burrito Test

by ClockworkRainbow



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, re-posting an older fic from my tumblr, sometime during s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 23:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15375489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkRainbow/pseuds/ClockworkRainbow
Summary: Shiro and Slav have an unplanned heart-to-heart at 3AM.





	Castle Of Lions Passes The Burrito Test

           It is three AM and Shiro is greeted by the sight of Slav microwaving a burrito.

           He doesn’t want to know how in his current state, addled by nightmares and insomnia and quite frankly god knows what else- that he is able to ascertain this information. He doesn’t want to know how Slav got a burrito in the first place, or how a hermetic spacefaring inventor knows what a burrito  _is_. He doesn’t want to know how, in the depths, light years from any star, the fine-tuned intuition of a chronic all-nighter has told him that it is, in fact, three AM in whatever hybrid of Earth and Altean time everyone’s biorhythms have become clocked to.

           “Oh, you’re up.” Slav notes cheerfully. He pats the table next to him with a paw. “Have a seat.”

           At an utter loss for any other way to respond to this situation, Shiro concedes partially, sitting not on the table but pulling out one of the chairs next to it. Slav, unperturbed in a manner that’s frankly a little alarming given his usual level of anxiety, settles his topmost pair of arms into its attached pocket, whistling snatches of something that sounds bizarrely like the 1812 overture.

           There are only so many things Shiro is able to put up with about this situation at once. He drags his flesh-and-blood hand down his face, trying to muster some amount of coherence. “Slav, it’s three AM.”

           “Speaking technically in the time systems of my native planet, it is six bar ebb. In galactic standardized time, that would be 02:11. Either way I suppose it is a reasonably godless hour.”

           The microwave hums between them, interspersed with Slav’s whistling.

           Shiro takes another stab at making sense of the universe: “Why.”

           “Answering that question would require an unabridged history of the bar-dal-vir time system’s development as well as that of galactic standard time, which would coincidentally necessitate an unabridged history of the rise of the empire as far as I understand it, as well as general deliberations on why it is that time exists at all.” Horizontal-pupiled eyes sidle in Shiro’s direction. “You ask some very detailed questions in the middle of the night.”

           “No, I meant-” he motions, briefly, at the microwave.

           “Oh! That. I don’t particularly intend to eat it, if you want it.”

           Shiro’s need to know briefly, but bloodily, wages war against the growing suspicion that the longer this conversation goes, the less anything will make sense. The sole survivor of the conflict manages to stagger uphill to a neuron, triumphantly mounting the flag of curiosity. “…So…”

           “Sometimes, I like to remind myself that as long as I am able to wake up in the middle of the night and heat up leftovers, it means I am no longer in prison.”

           It takes longer than it really should have for Shiro to process this information, a time in which he studies the burrito, the microwave, Slav, and the entire situation.

           “It’s literally the burrito test.”

           Slav blinks, the feelers around his mouth wiggling pensively. “I think that sentence was supposed to make sense.”

           “It’s a thing on Earth. If you can’t get up in the middle of the night to microwave a burrito, you live in an institution.” He pauses, watching Slav’s expression. “It means other people are controlling your life.”

           The inventor puzzles this a moment, with a slow blink. God knows maybe Shiro isn’t the only one half-awake here. “You mean to tell me an entire species, entirely separate from the larger galactic community, has also decided to measure personal freedom with a pointless exercise in food preparation?”

           “…When you put it that way, it sounds kind of funny.”

           For a moment, both of them turned back to the microwave- the burrito turning slowly in place within it.

           “Actually, a little reassuring.”

           He looks at Slav, trying to place the tone in the other’s voice- but Slav is still watching the machine, with rapt attention the likes of which Shiro doesn’t think he’s seen out of him ever before. “What do you mean by that?”

           “You wonder sometimes, don’t you?” Slav’s tail makes a languid pass over the surface of the table. “You start out only doing the things that make sense, and reality plays along- or it seems to, at least, it’s statistically unlikely that any reality cares about personal comfort-” a small sigh. “But there’s a while where it all seems to make sense, and then something goes and happens and everything is a mess, so what do you do? You keep trying to go with what makes sense. There you are, a tiny, insignificant speck in a grander cosmos that’s throwing you into situations that get worse and worse and all you  _have_  is what you can make sense of. Silly things. Irrelevant things. Whether or not you can microwave leftovers. If you can tell when the guard is coming. If you can make the system overload and delay the part that hurts by point five seconds.” Wide pink eyes slide in Shiro’s direction, the brows above them crinkled in a look that’s- not apologetic. Humor. A humor too bleak to actually laugh at. “Point five seconds. And it seems to make perfect sense at the time.”

           Shiro’s mouth has gone dry. He hasn’t realized at what point he started gripping the edge of the chair, but when he lets go he realizes his prosthetic has left finger-shaped indents in the metal. He folds his arms across his chest, traps the mechanical one between his chest and its still-flesh counterpart.

           Whatever Slav sees in this, he nods slightly and turns to look back at the microwave. He has scars, Shiro realizes- barely noticeable, around the base of his ears. Tiny, round scars, more cabbage-colored than the green of the rest of his head. Their configuration suggests electrodes.

           The microwave goes off like a gunshot in the silence- Shiro jerks, hard enough to almost knock his chair over-  _what was he thinking sitting down, bad angle, maneuver around it how fast is enemy approaching-_

           Slav, entirely undaunted, hops off of the table and waddles to retrieve the burrito, stretching upwards to reach it. He has to set the plate on the table to clamber his way back up onto the surface of it, engaging several sets of arms in the process- but once there he settles without so much as glancing at Shiro, as if everyone startles like that. Offhandedly, mumbled out of the corner of his mouth: “If you’re committed to people not knowing that you don’t sleep well, you might want to actually change clothes at night. I know the other paladins seem to.”

           He nearly protests- he’s not wearing his vest- but it dies. “…What do you mean I don’t want them to know?”

           “Is that not what you’re doing?” Slav’s tone is not assured- rather, it seems genuinely quizzical. He picks at the burrito’s shell with thoughtful fingers, and seems to nibble a few pieces. It’s hard to really understand  _quite_  how the alien’s jaw works- regardless, the motions seem tentative.

           “No,” Shiro pauses. Thinks. “…I’m not sure.”

           Slav waves a piece of lettuce. “This is exactly what I was talking about. You’re minding your own business doing things that make sense, but when you actually think about them, they don’t. Because who knows what makes sense anymore? Things that made sense back then don’t where you are now. And then everyone starts giving you that  _look_ , where they’re worried about you. Probably going to start having well-meaning little talks behind your back. Don’t blame you for trying to avoid it, honestly.”

           “That’s not what I’m doing.”

           Slav shrugs his three uppermost sets of shoulders. On further observation, the leaf he’s chewing is definitely not lettuce- it’s pale violet in color, and looks slightly prickly.

           A part of him, he realizes, was really hoping Slav was going to argue. The silence is not doing him good.

            _It’s three AM. Probably approaching four by now. I shouldn’t even be here, I should-_

           Go back to pacing the castle? Like they’re going to get boarded in the middle of space, light-years from any inhabited planet or shipping channel- a route they specifically picked to lay low? Like even if they did, he’s going to be a real deterrent half-awake and partially undressed?

           Try to commit himself to pretending to sleep? Basically lying to his team about something that’s  _definitely_  going to be hindering his performance- something he’d give any of them an earful and a half about if he caught Keith, or Allura, or Pidge shorting themselves and staying up…

           Has he already been a hypocrite about this?

           His flesh-and-blood hand comes up to massage his temples. There’s a reassuring blackness behind his eyelids, warmth and pressure. “…So what do you do?”

           “I’m going to assume this is not a broad request of information, but, rather, I’m contextually missing you once again.” Slav mumbles around a chunk of something looking like a cross between an onion, a cucumber, and a tomato, painted blue.

           “What you said earlier. When you realize you aren’t making sense.”

           “Oh.”

           There is an uncomfortably long silence after that.

           Then, more quietly, “I suppose that’s the part that we’re finding out now.”

           What follows afterwards is more comfortable- quiet, but interspersed with the sounds of Slav munching.

           “If you want my advice- it’s statistically probable that any near-death malfunctions, invasions, or other undesirable outcomes are going to wait until tomorrow. And even then you have upwards of a fifty-percent survival rate.”

           Despite everything, he cracks a grin. “Really? You’re not predicting everyone dying for once?”

           Slav flashes him a look, brows lifted. The effect is somewhat diminished for him being a child-sized, cat-eared alien in the process of eating a burrito piece by piece. “I’ve had to adjust my predictive models on the fact that your team has an abnormally high success rate with otherwise low survival outcomes. Haven’t nailed down the variables yet.”

           He eases out of the chair. “You know what? That’s good enough for me.”


End file.
